Quant Pioneers LLC is an independent advisory and consulting firm founded in 2018 by Herbert Blank, a quantitative investment professional since 1980. Areas of expertise include: all things ETF, ESG, Responsible Investing, Alternative Data, Indexation, Product Strategy, Portfolio Construction, Governance, Product Development and Lead Generation. To date, Quant Pioneers has performed services and/or has finder’s fee agreements with nine different companies.
Herbert Blank, Chief Executive Officer
As CEO of Quant Pioneers LLC, Herb Blank has principal responsibility for all consulting engagements. Best known as the first ETF Portfolio Manager in the United States while with Deutsche Bank in 1996, Herb is also a published author in refereed journals on ESG data and factors, alternative data, ETF structure applications and global indexation.
Additionally, Herb Blank is Senior Quantitative Strategist and Chief Blogger for ValuEngine, a leading provider of quantitative reports and analysis for US Equities for more than 24 years. Herb’s articles also appear on TalkMarkets.com, in ReseachGate.com and on Linked-In where he is in the top 1% of influencers In the financial industry; he has more than 15,000 followers there.
Herb also heads the Product Strategy consultancy at Global Finesse LLC, a 10-year consulting firm serving the FinTech and investment industries. He provides ESG, ETF, enhanced indexing and alternative data expertise and has authored three studies for DTCC Kinetics products.
During the past 35 years Herb has been involved in quantitative risk management, ESG modeling, ETF product development, portfolio management, product strategy, and business development.
Other industry achievements include serving as product manager for ESG and Structured Solutions for S-Network Global Indexes. Since managing the Fidelity Social Principles Fund in 1987, Herb has been involved in what ESG investments for more than 30 years and provided onsite Social Research quantitative modeling services for the Calvert Investments Social Research Group. He also created industry-specific ESG models for 5,000 companies covered by Thomson Reuters Asset4 and co-authored “Best Practices in ESG Investing” article published in Journal of Investing.
Herb is a frequently published author in investment journals. He holds an MBA from NYU Stern and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.
More about Herb can be found in his Linked-In profile here.
Rajesh brings deep expertise in the beta indexing space having spent 15 years at MSCI and Morningstar Indexes with positions ranging through data management to team set-up.
He has built off shore teams handling index rebalance, corporate actions-index calculation, operations and project management. Additionally, he has directed complex knowledge transfers, process migrations and created a global master database used for index construction by defining rules for reference data mapping, eligible share classes and country classification.
Rajesh has worked extensively with tech teams, representing business side and lead multi year projects executed from different locations. Also, he has directed index governance including policies for index administration, third party data management, IOSCO compliance and application under EU BMR.
Currently he works as an independent consultant to bring additional layer of support and bridge the knowledge gap for index related data, especially corporate actions management, back-testing, portfolio construction and rebalancing including project management following Agile framework.
More about Rajesh can be found here
Rajesh Jain, Consultant
Thought Leadership
Herb’s Participation as Invited Expert in: “State Street Supplier Diversity Panel – Incorporating Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Selecting Key Suppliers” https://www.statestreet.com/about/vendors/supplier-diversity/incorporating-inclusion-and-diversity.html
Presentation made July 28 2022 to the Villages Investment Club
Other Business
Global Finesse is an independent advisory and management consulting firm assisting clients with transformative change, new capabilities, agile innovation, and new product/service offerings within the global financial industry.
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